This must be Ivy Moreno. Ivy De La Rosa now. The face of the vengeance Santiago sought against her family. My mind wanders back to my first meeting with Santiago back at the IVI compound. How I’d wondered about the type of woman who could make a proper husband and father out of a man like Santiago De La Rosa.
“Daddy’s working, you naughty girl,” she tells the little girl, catching up with her and hugging her.
The child giggles as Ivy nuzzles her neck.
“Daddy has a few minutes,” Santiago says, stepping out of the shadows. His eyes are on me as he lifts the toddler in one arm and wraps the other possessively around his wife. He kisses the top of the baby’s head and pulls Ivy close.
“I didn’t know anyone was here,” Ivy says, startled at seeing me.
“You had your hands full,” he tells her as I walk toward the family and wonder again at this woman. At how she was able to domesticate a man like him. Because I can see his devotion to her. He didn’t give up his vengeance entirely, though. Did she forgive him for what he did?
“Jericho,” Santiago says once we’re only a few feet away. “Welcome.”
I need to find out more about what happened between the De La Rosa and Moreno families. I want to learn how these two came from hating each other to having a family together. To very clearly loving one another.
I smile to Ivy. “Good morning. I didn’t mean to intrude.” I didn’t. Actually, seeing his family like this has got me off my game. “I’m Jericho St. James,” I tell her, extending a hand.
She looks to her husband who watches me but gives her an almost imperceptible nod. She extends her hand, slipping it into mine.
“Ivy De La Rosa. This is Elena and little Santi,” she says, and I can hear her love for these children in her voice.
The little girl openly studies me, her eyes just like her father’s. There’s nothing shy about this child and I get the feeling she has her daddy wrapped around her little finger. It makes me think of my own daughter. How she’s so opposite. So quiet and shy. I think about what Isabelle said and wonder if she’s shy because she’s afraid. If she’s afraid because in trying to protect her, I’ve made her that way.
“Nice to meet all of you,” I say, and turn to Santiago. “I realize you’re busy, but I’d appreciate a minute of your time.”
He nods, turns to his little girl. “Go help your mommy with your brother,” he tells her. “And when I’m finished we’ll play.”
The little girl gives me a look and sighs. “Santi is no fun. All he does is sleep and poop. Poop and sleep.”
Santiago chuckles, crouches to set her down and whispers something in her ear which makes the girl clap her hands in excitement.
“Promise?”
He winks at her. “Promise.”
“Okay.” She turns to Ivy and takes her hand. “Come on, mommy,” she says and leads her away.
Ivy just shrugs a shoulder. “Nice to meet you, Mr. St. James,” she says to me and the two disappear down a corridor.
Santiago is studying me when I turn back to him. “Looks like you have your hands full,” I tell him.
“In the best way,” he says and glances to where his family just disappeared.
“I won’t keep you from them for too long.”
He nods. “This way.” I follow him down a corridor to his office where he closes the door and takes his seat behind the large desk. I note the computer screens in the room, see the flashes of numbers, see him glance at them. I wonder how his brain works. How he makes sense of it all. He’s made the members of IVI, my family included, a lot of money over the years. The man is a genius. And a force to be reckoned with.
He gestures to the seat in front of the desk that I take.
“How can I help you?”
I study him as he steeples his fingers, gaze unwavering, the half-skull tattoo as if showcasing the darker, dangerous side of this husband and father. We have that in common, though. I have killed to keep my family safe. He has done the same.
“What is your business with my brother?” I ask outright, deciding straightforward is the way to go with this man.
He grins. He was expecting this. Probably anticipating my visit.
“My business with Ezekiel is my business with Ezekiel. Just as my business with you is my business with you.”
“I thought you might say that, but I’m here because I have a feeling that business overlaps.”
“As brothers that may always be the case.” His gaze doesn’t waver.
Mine doesn’t either. “Carlton Bishop made a comment that has piqued my curiosity.”
“Did he?”
“Well, not so much the comment itself as the way he looked at my brother when he said what he said. It’s similar to how you looked at him during our meeting at the compound. When you mentioned my father’s accident.”
“Hmm.”
“Except that Bishop went a little farther to give the impression that his death and my sister’s death were somehow related.”
Santiago leans back in his seat, and it takes him a moment to answer. I can tell he’s trying to decide something in that moment. “They died years apart.”
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
He glances down, forehead furrowing, jaw tightening. He looks at me again, leans his elbows on the desk. “Leave it, Jericho,” he says, tone different.
My jaw tenses, my throat tightening. “Leave what?”
“I won’t tell you my business with your brother.”
“And yet clearly that business has something to do with me.”
“But I will give you some advice,” he adds, ignoring me.
“It’s not advice I want. It’s the truth.”
“I don’t believe Ezekiel has lied to you.”
“He hasn’t told me the whole truth though, has he?”
Santiago stands up, walks to the window, and pushes the curtain aside to look out. Over his shoulder I can see his family outside. Ivy pushing the little girl in a swing while the baby sleeps in the stroller at her side.
He turns back to me. “I’m going to give you that advice anyway. Leave it alone. It has nothing to do with Carlton Bishop. With what he did to you or to the mother of your child. If it did, I would tell you.”
“Are they related?” I start, I don’t know why because something is telling me to heed his advice. To leave it alone. Let the dead lie. “My sister’s death.” Her suicide. I can’t quite bring myself to say the word though. “My father’s.”
He doesn’t answer me. Just studies me for a very long time. Too long. “Your brother is not your enemy. That’s all I can tell you. Now, if you don’t mind, I made my daughter a promise and I don’t break promises.”
I get to my feet his words cutting in a way I know he had no intention to cut. I think about Angelique. About her falling asleep on the floor while waiting for me to keep my promise. I have to shove that image aside though. So, I remind myself of Isabelle’s words telling me to fix it, to choose. I choose my family. This is all about my family. Always has been.
But I’ve been focused on Angelique, on Kimberly’s murder, on vengeance for so long that I’ve neglected the rest of the family. Has my brother come to terms with his twin’s suicide? What kind of life has he lived all these years?